Wednesday, September 09, 2015

Today, 9 September 2015, the Queen became the longest serving monarch. She's 89, the same age as my uncle Drew, who passed away on Monday. He was something of a monarchist, so I reckon he'd have raised a large mug of tea - the bigger the better - to her (he didn't really drink).

Here's looking at you kid - Drew and Alex

I last saw him at the start of the summer holidays when we took our two boys on their first trip to Scotland. It was very exciting for them as they were flying for the first time as well, which made it a great adventure.

The news from Scotland over the past few months hadn't been good. Drew had been in hospital for an operation which he was struggling to recover from. My mum went up to see him when went to the funeral of one of her sisters and expressed her shock at how he looked. He hadn't been well enough to attend himself and was upset about that.

Since then, he'd been in hospital and had recently been moved to a smaller, convalescent facility in his home town of Lanark. I knew that if we didn't get up to see him soon there might not be another chance.

He's always been something of a favourite uncle Drew. In some respects he could come across a bit like the boy that never grew up - always joking, creating mischief, and looking to lighten the atmosphere. His entrance into a room would quickly provoke a response, usually from one of the women in there who would inevitably call him an "auld devil" after some cheeky comment or other, provoking a howl of laughter from him.

However he was also a serious man who had seen things in life that I hope I never see. As a teenager, he was in the army in the latter days of the push into Germany. His unit helped liberate the concentration camps. A few years ago he was showing me some pictures from the Eighties of him and his deceased, and much loved wife, my auntie Nancy. They were standing in front of a small mound which it turned out was a mass grave. He volunteered this information in a sombre tone, and I was taken aback by it. I'd never known this, and wish now I'd asked him more about it, but I didn't quite know what to say. Besides which my two young sons were there, and they would quickly have intervened to get his attention.

Drew in the army

To them, he was uncle Drew, and he was very generous to them as I know he was to other children of his nephews and nieces - he didn't have children of his own, having married later in life.

His interest in trains gave him a mainline straight to the interests of small lads. His father, my grandfather had driven steam trains, and had fired up an interest. As soon as he knew my eldest was obsessed with trains, we started to receive pictures of obscure locomotives that he'd snapped on his travels with his steam locomotive enthusiast buddies. Then came the DVDs of G-Scale model railways - another huge enthusiasm. Finally, on a trip to visit my mum, he somehow managed to pack a train set for the boys into his bag and cart it all the way to Buckingham. This thing wasn't at all small, and at this stage he was already well into his eighties with recently diagnosed back problems - not that it seemed to slow him up much.

After that visit a few years ago he was always promising a return, but due to his failing health, it never came about, hence the visit from us.

Despite being warned that he was frail, it was a shock to see him. He seemed much smaller and suddenly a lot older. He'd lost weight and moved slowly as he emerged into the room to meet me. Strangely, when I hugged him, he still seemed to have retained enough upper body strength to return a hearty embrace. Although he was quieter, he also kept up his cheeky rapport with the nurses, who affected to be at their wits end with this old goat, but who seemed to have a great affection for him. He cackled as they replied in kind to his quips. I'm glad that he was there at the end - he felt safe there and was able to see the many friends and family who were concerned about him.

We took him to lunch that day, although he struggled to eat much. Other members of the family arrived too. I got the impression that he was never short of visitors. Apparently it was the first time that he had been out in months. I think he enjoyed it. He reminisced and told some stories about his time as a scout leader, and his brother Joe and nephew John had him cackling with their gags.

As we left, he gave me another great hug and said something to me. I didn't quite catch the words in the car park outside the restaurant, but I got the gist of it. There probably wouldn't be another meeting and he was saying his goodbyes.

When I heard that he'd passed I felt sad of course, but it was a fleeting emotion. I was glad that he was now free of pain and started thinking of the happy times that we'd shared with him, and of a life well lived. He was a soldier, a husband, a postie, a scout master, a train enthusiast, a mischief maker, and much more, and he was my uncle. And now he's at peace.